Category Archives: compassion

The Kind of Silk Parachutes Are Made Of

Waterfire, Providence, RI by M D Mikus Copyright 2010

2/9/17

The Kind of Silk Parachutes Are Made Of

(After Crystal, Peter Mulvey, Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Love is not reserved
for those deemed deserving
the few familiar inner circle

Love is the necessary antidote
to pervasive poisonous fear
let the shadows

be brought to the light
Fear cannot neutralize fear
only love can do that

not the mushiness
of pop culture love
but the surprising strength

of love-silk, each energy fiber
made and woven
by determined due diligence

the healing of tenderness
Love is power, not force
seeing the best in

and holding that sacred space
with hope, but not expectation
Not the dark pull of what is happening

But…
who are you in relation to this?
What are your choices?

Can you take 1 minute and send
to our White House
glitter sprinkles of love

a blizzard of love
At first they evaporate like
snowflakes on a hot July sidewalk

but persist—even a little bit
added to millions of bits
can cover in love as a blanket

“only love in, only love out.”
It takes so little to try it
and keep on…love as a radical act

of resistance
of resilience
of resolution
of revolution
of resurrection

Margaret Dubay Mikus
(c) 2017

From my poetic journal.
Published in Journal of Modern Poetry, vol. 21, “Dear Mr. President,” 2018

Love and Only Love

This poem has been in my head lately as a reminder that no matter what struggles are going on with my body, to send it love. It is doing its best. A good way to start a new year.

Love and Only Love

Love with every stroke of the shaver,
with every lather of soap, slather of lotion, love.

Not impatience, not frustration, not disgust
at varicose veins, sags, wrinkles, scars,

but love,
with every look, every caress

at the power, the strength,
the beauty of this body in my care.

Love with every glance in the mirror
every wry smile, every tear.

Love, love and only love.
Yes, other thoughts slip in,

let them slip out,
no recrimination, no justification.

Love with every stroke,
healing in my touch, breath

and blink of an eye.
Love, love and only love.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2007

From my poetic journal

Fireworks, Copyright 2014, M D Mikus

Poem for Spring About Acceptance

7:15 PM

You don’t criticize a bud
because it is not yet a flower
or judge the speed of its opening
as too slow.
It is a bud,
nature in motion,
life in process.

And when petals first unfurl,
you don’t heap harsh words
on those virgin petals.
You wait with awe
and anticipation
that should all progress
according to design,
without harshness of influence
or environment—no early
frost or late freeze,
no fire or pest or disease—
that with one invisible push,
the mature bloom opens revealing
the hidden heart in all its glory.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2004

From Letting Go and New Beginnings: A Mother’s Poetic Journey

Multi-color Tulip by M D Mikus, Copyright 2013

My Lawrence Ferlinghetti Story, part 2

Some poems insist on being sent to the one who inspired them. I try to follow that impulse, but sometimes I lose track. My poem, “Ferlinghetti Speaks,” was one of those. It was written in 2002, but I didn’t send it to him until 2014.

The push to send it was his 95th birthday and the sense that time was running out to do it. Probably urged by my voice teacher, Kip, I emailed City Lights Booksellers (begun years back by Ferlinghetti in San Francisco) to see if that was the best address to send my poems inspired by him. The staff got back to me in 1 1/2 days: “Yes, if you send them c/o the store, they will be passed on to him. Thanks.”

Encouraged, I wrote a short letter and mailed it with the two poems (the one below included). I did not hear back, but that wasn’t the point. I did what I felt strongly I wanted / needed to do and that was enough. I wanted to tell someone that they inspired me, that who they were or what they did or wrote mattered, enough to take my time to tell them.

I felt so strongly about this, wanting to avoid regrets, as alluded to in this poem, because of previous experiences when I waited too long. So here is the second poem I sent to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, part of my honoring his passing.

3/25/14

Someone Posted on Facebook

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is 95 today
and I never did send him that poem he inspired
by his inspired reading in Chicago that day
that turned the compass needle sideways and
the streets in the Loop ran in perpendicular directions

no lie
until things settled down out of the long shadows
out back in the sun, back in touch
with the ground and the somewhere blue sky.

I considered sending him the poem
considered writing the back story
even tracked down the San Francisco address
of City Lights Booksellers
but each time I talked myself out of it

intimidated maybe
or not high enough on the crowded list
or waves of life knocking me flat sometimes.
You would think I’d learned after Vonnegut’s death,
and Susannah’s, how the good ideas, the kindnesses
left undone are the things later that haunt you
not every day, but sometimes.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2014

From Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine

The poem, “Ferlinghetti Speaks” is in My Ferlinghetti Story, part 1

Steep Street to the Bridge, San Francisco, Copyright 2007, Margaret Dubay Mikus

Still Time

10/27/20

Still Time

Inspired by an incredibly talented woman
(from Wei’s post)

Quietly watching
the light come back
into the world
In midst of these times
patient
if not trusting
willing to wait and see
before jumping headlong
into the dark uncertainty
Find some ground
plant feet firmly
You are that ground
for me
And you out there
are the ground for somebody

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2020

An offering from my poetic journal.

November Sunset, M D Mikus, Copyright 2018